The Crumbling Beauty Of New York's 'Borscht Belt' Resorts [PHOTOS]

In the first half of the 20th century, Jews were unwelcome at many resorts in the United States.

So beginning in the 1930s, middle class Jewish New Yorkers found a respite in rural Southeastern New York.

The so-called "Borscht Belt" — also known as the Jewish Alps and Solomon Country — was transformed by the Jewish community into a resort haven of their own.

Skiing, skating, swimming, and boating were all offered by the ritzy resorts. Little-known comedians including Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers all got their start doing stand-up comedy here. The community even inspired the film "Dirty Dancing."

In short, the Borscht Belt was booming.

But that all changed in the 1960s. Cheap air travel suddenly allowed a new generation to visit more exotic and warmer destinations. Grossinger's Resort, which once boasted 150,000 visitors annually and was known as the "Waldorf in the Catskills," abandoned its operations in 1986.

"While the project originated with my interest in the area's regional history and engages personal notions of memory, it also reveals the growth, flowering and exhaustion of things, and then their subsequent regeneration," Scheinfeld said in her artist statement. "The Borscht Belt was a haven for an entire cultural and social movement of people; its influences spread to mainstream American culture, entertainment and media."